Sermon – Joshua 3:1-17 – Crossing our River Jordan

well if you weren't here last week I started off a new sermon series this is gonna be a short sermon series out of the book of Joshua and I'm not gonna cover the whole of the book of Joshua I'm just extracting a few points out of the early parts of the book of Joshua I love the book of Joshua if you've not read Joshua before dig in it is some good stuff in the book of Joshua get in there and read it and see just how amazing God is in this story the story of Joshua the the faithfulness of God to his people fulfilling the promises that he had made generations before just the work that he does is truly this is just like if there was an action movie of amazing things in the Old Testament this would be part of that movie we started off like I said was it last week Joshua won that Joshua is the transition point where we're moving from Moses into Joshua as the leader of the Israelite people and you may remember I said this a number of times last week and it says a whole bunch of times in Scripture one of the big ideas that God wants to make sure we get out of this is I am God don't be afraid and be strong right I am with you you are my people I am your God be strong and courageous he says this over and over and over Moses says it to Joshua and God says it to Joshua be strong and courageous for I go with you so that's one of the big ideas in in Joshua 2 we actually had a sermon on this if hmm two months two and a half months ago I preached about Rahab if you remember so I kind of put her in the women of faith series rather than preach it here but Rahab helped these guys out and let the spies out through the wall and that's what we're gonna kind of pick it up today is we're gonna be in Joshua 3 so if you've got sermon notes in your bulletin that you want to fill out feel free to grab and dig those out I'm gonna read to you a chunk of Joshua 3 here just to get us started and then we will dig in with the rest of it this is Joshua 3 my Bible says crossing the Jordan it says early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from shittim and went to up to the Jordan where camped before crossing over after three days the officers went throughout the camp giving orders to the people when you see the Ark of the Covenant of your Lord your God and the priests to earn Levites carrying it you are to move out from your positions and follow it then you will know which way to go since you have never been this way before but keep a distance of about a thousand yards between you and the Ark do not go near it Joshua told the people consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you Joshua then also said to the priests today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all of Israel so they may know that I am with you as I am was with Moses tell the priests who carry the ark in the Covenant Ark of the Covenant when you reach the edge of the Jordans water go and stand in the river Joshua said to the Israelites come here and listen to the word of the Lord your God this is how you will know that the Living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out from you the Canaanites the Hittites the Hittites the parasites the girgashites the amorite the Jabba sites and maybe some termites I don't know if your Bible says that verse 11 see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of the all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you now then choose 12 men from the tribes of Israel one from each tribe and as soon as the priests who carry the Ark of the Lord the Lord of all of the earth set foot in the Jordan its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap so when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant and went ahead of them now the Jordan is at flood stage during all of harvest yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan their feet touched the waters edged the water from upstream stopped flowing it piled up in a heap a great distance away at a town called Adam in the vicinity of zaire athan while the water was flowing down to the sea of Arabah the salt sea was completely cut off so the people crossed over opposite of Jericho the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing upon dry ground this is the Word of God and that is an amazing story I love the story I love the story of Joshua Joshua was so inspiring and as I said we talked about this a while back Joshua had sent out these two spies right to go and survey the land and so these two spies had returned from Jericho having followed Joshua's orders to check out the land to check out the city and through Rahab's help they had escaped being caught they had been detected but they never got caught Rahab helps them out and later on in the story Rahab's family will be spared because of her service and long ways down the line she shows up in Jesus's lineage so it's a pretty neat story way back here in the Old Testament right and so they come back and they give the reports to general Joshua and their hearts are just bursting with joy when they get back and as they said these words to Joshua and Joshua 2:24 they say the Lord has handed over the entire land to us everyone who lives in the land is basically panicking because they have heard about us this was exactly the news that Joshua had been waiting for when he hears this immediately he sends out runners as we heard just now he sends out runners throughout the vast camp of Israel announcing that first thing in the morning we will be breaking camp okay fold up your tents pack everything up and we're moving down to the banks of the Jordan River they would finally finally come to the entry point of the promised land remember this comes on the heels of them wandering in the desert for 40 years can you imagine that the buzz that's circulating through the Israelite community that day this day right we stand on the brink of a dream we will come again finally to that very were our parents and our grandparents you see they blew it they had their shot and they blew it they got to the Jordan and they failed they were afraid and they blew it so we spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness this time we're gonna up a we're not walking through that desert for 40 more years I'm tired of mana right and I'm sure there was a bunch of whining because they were Israelites that's what the Bible says they whined they complained non-stop to Moses for forty years so I'm sure they were ready very ready but if they approach this famous River the River Jordan they see that this river it see it forms this barrier between them and the place that they want to go this this river is between them and in this real estate that God had promised them and when they get there and they see it with their own eyes by the light of day oh they're a little confused and certainly a whole lot worried because you see when they get to the banks of the Jordan River we heard this in the scripture a moment ago that Jordan is uncrossable there's a simple sentence in verse 15 that I read it says now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season the normally gentle Jordan River you've probably seen pictures or videos of people going down into the Jordan River and getting baptized right and and in this day and age with the dams that there are and also with the incredible pressure water usage on the Jordan River it doesn't flood like it used to but back in these days it was a raging torrent a giant raging river swelled to flood stage I don't know if you've ever lived through that even just a year ago we got whatever was 11 inches of rain that ripple River through my backyard came up about 40 feet in my backyard that's a little frightening that's just the ripple River it barely meets the qualification a river normally this is the Jordan you see in the Jordan River when it hits flood stage back in these days we're talking like a 40 mile-per-hour current it swells to over a mile wide in places and what's worse is the area that's all along this river because you got to remember there kind of in a desert climate when you get near water that's where everything grows so when the floodwaters come up it hides all this stuff that's trying to trip you and trap you and drowned you that you can't see that's under the water now so they show up to the edge of this river thinking we're supposed to go where again huh what really they're frightened they're concerned they're worried this is the site that greets them hundreds of thousands of people probably millions even of people yet they come and they pitched their tents right in the little bluff overlooking the Jordan River now the Bible tells us that they spend the next three days and nights there and each and every day each and every hour as that River goes rushing by I can imagine that river is just eroding their confidence the waiting you ever had to wait at the foot of something that was frightening the tension that it builds in you that waiting is just pounding on him every day the way to getting heavier pounding reality into the Israelites we get across that maybe some doubts you know they start to enter in their minds sitting around the campfire at night you can hear logs crashing as they go downriver you can hear the torrent while you're sitting around cooking dinner around the campfire you might be talking with your neighbor from the tent next door you know my wife she's a good swimmer she might make it but boy I'm not so good and I don't think our kids are gonna make it how are we gonna get across this thing tell these folks got infants right they had a baby last week what are they gonna do how can we brave this flood and in an instant nose began to form in their minds and in their hearts as they listened to the roar of the river it's easy for us to to relate to those emotions isn't it it's easy for us to relate to the thoughts of Israel because many of us I think have faced our own personal Jordan's our own personal Jordans that feel so so permanent feel so powerful that we don't even want to try to make it across Our Lives feel stalled like we're stuck on the wrong side of God's promises we we read our Bibles and we read and we hear about this abundant life but yet we can't make it out of the wilderness not only do we feel that way sometimes churches feel that way too stalemated by the the promise of of something great with God but blocked by all different kinds of barriers but God can turn on no way into a highway here that our God could turn in no way into a highway can t the great question that loomed over the camp of Israel looms over our lives as well today will we walk by sight or by faith that's the question do we really believe that God can handle the impossible do we believe it Joshua 3 goes on to tell us something that is echoed throughout Scripture what is impossible with men is possible with God find it Luke 18:27 if you want to see a New Testament reference you see in the story here God was about to reveal the steps that must be taken in every life in every church if we want to move forward in faith freeing ourselves from the shackles of our past moving into our god-given future the experiences the decisions that are reported in this chapter as I just read it are a major breakthrough for the nation of Israel a whole new generation learned that victory depended upon God not on them I think as we as a church stand on the brink of a god-sized future and consider yeah there's obstacles that could hold us back maybe sometimes things in our lives personally feel like it's impossible how do we get from here to there so remember these things are no match for the god of the uncrossable he knows how to get you through the impossible this is God's way here God's way for us to cross our uncrossable obstacles first we must follow the movements of God we see this in Joshua 3 2 through 4 it says after three days the officers went throughout the camp and commanded the people when you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God carried by the Levitical priests you must break camp and follow it what did this command mean to the Israelites why would why would God care so much about a piece of furniture that he would require it to go first right what was the big deal if you don't know about the Ark let me tell ya the Ark was a visual reminder of God's power of his faithfulness of his provision of his love of his plan for the lives of the Israelites and greater than that the ark was an Old Testament equivalent of Jesus as Immanuel God with us when this chest led the way it meant that God was going out in front of them he would so to speak take the first steps into the cannon River their task was to follow his lead to pursue his presence to come after him he was going first he was leading the way verse 4 then lays out the procedure which they were to do to make this happen it says but as these priests go out into the river make sure you keep a distance of about a thousand yards between yourself in the Ark don't go near it it says so that you can see the way to go for you haven't traveled this way before God was very very particular about the distance that he wanted them to be away from the ark and his reasons are clear he wanted it to be possible so that all of the people of Israel would be able to see which way God wanted them to go if if the people who are up front if they crowded up right up close to where the ark was nobody else would be able to see the direction nobody else would be able to see all they could do is follow the pack and that'll follow God you don't want to follow the pack follow God right and so God is telling them no keep a distance from it so that you can see so that you can follow me rather than follow the pack so now picture the scene all of Israel's camped out on this sloping hill beside the River Jordan the Ark is positioned a thousand yards away from that everyone in the nation would be able to see it the priests would bear it by rods upon their shoulders they would walk out it stride out towards this raging torrent of a river and everyone would understand the point that God intended for Israel to breach the River Jordan with him but it could only be done if they focused on following him centuries later the true Ark of God would come among us emanuelle Jesus Christ the Ark contained the Ten Commandment to see Jesus fulfilled the law the ark provided the manna by which God fed his people Christ is the bread of life the ark held a symbol of God's power to bring life out of death jesus is alive from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father and so hebrews 12:2 calls us to keep our eyes on Jesus the source and perfecter of our faith we are all just constantly enduring but while we endure we are truly entering the future moment by moment and as we we gaze at the challenges that we see on the road before us we see the things that are coming our way don't we we see cancer we see the creditors we see this crisis coming our way most of the things that come at us don't come so much as a surprise occasionally they do and when we're looking at that on our road in the future it's easy to conclude that we're stuck in the wilderness right we're away we're lost we're nowhere near the abundance of God don't buy into that lie God has something great in store for you and for us this is true for the body of Christ as it is for you personally we can't always see our way clearly we don't always know what's lurking under the rushing waters of our River Jordans all of us probably have looked at our future and wondered oh what's the calm we've seen challenges at times things that didn't go as we planned and we've concluded there's no possible way I can do this right so what do you do when you're facing the impossible well you do what Peter did right when he walked on water you fix your eyes on Jesus when you see the impossible coming fix your eyes on Jesus you see we know from the story of Peter the minute his eyes went off of Jesus he looked down at the raging waters what happened mmm-hmm right down into the water he went he was looking at Jesus and all the sudden he remembered people can't walk on water oh no right yet Jesus reached down to save him anyhow we must all focus and follow the movements of our Lord so that we will go where he is leading where he is leading we need to follow where you go Lord I will follow that should be on our hearts in our minds and on our tongues excuse me the second thing we see out of this passage that we must do is we need to consecrate ourselves excuse me for a minute here sorry I knew that tickle wasn't going to go away until I really coughed the second thing we need to do though is we need to consecrate ourselves Joshua told the people concentrate yourselves because the Lord will do wonders among you tomorrow the Hebrew word for consecrate means to prepare to dedicate to be hallowed to be holy to be separate or set apart God was telling his people that if they were going to cross the uncrossable if they were going to follow the will of God that they must be set apart that they must be holy that involved two simple things for them to do the very first one is it involved personal repentance of all their known sin they had to get right with God one of the primary reasons Israel found that their way was blocked well simply because of their said I am having a problem here sorry the reason Israel struggled the reason Israel had not taken the promised land previously was their sin Isaiah the prophet wrote indeed the Lord's hand is not too short to save and his ear is not too deaf to hear but your sins have built a barrier between you and your God and they have made him hide his face from you so that he does now listen isaiah 59:1 and 2 on the eve of the one of the greatest days if not the greatest day in the history of Israel they were commanded be certain that you make yourself right with God examine your life confess forsake sin and devote yourself wholly to the Lord the second way that they were supposed to consecrate themselves was by being alert to see where God was at work they were to pause the mundane put aside the normal functions of life so that they could be on spiritual high alert God was about to do something amazing right God is about to do some amazing things among them we don't want you to miss it don't miss out on this amazing thing God has in store because you were so busy over here doing something that didn't matter something you could have done at some other time so they turned their focus to God consecration means that I will set aside the typical and put my spiritual on so that I will I will be ready to see where God is working around me so that I can join in with what he is doing to cross the uncrossable we must first fix our eyes upon Jesus sensing his movements and then follow and then focus ourselves on being in constant alert spiritually for the hand of the Lord and see where he is working and moving around us and through us and among us and once we've done these things scripture says there's still one other thing that we need to do it says we need to step out and stand still we see that in verses 7 through 13 look at 7 & 8 if you're following along in your Bible you see it on the screen as well it says the Lord spoke to Joshua I will tell you today I will tell error says this Lord spoke to Joshua today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all of Israel so they will know that I will be with you just as I was with Moses command the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant when you reach the edge of the waters stand in the Jordan now jump ahead to verse 13 it says when the feet of the priests who carry the Ark of the Lord the Lord of all of the earth come to rest in the Jordan waters its waters will be cut off the water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass decision con time has come are we gonna move the priests are carrying the Ark of the Covenant and they've got to step out in the water they're gonna walk out into that flood and then stand still in the middle of it right there where we can see it the command of God was as they step out into that water and they get their feet wet when they stop there he'll stop the water and then you will follow you see faith moves us forward in God's Way and God's timing and there will come a time there will come a moment where you must act on what God has set and if you don't you'll never cross the Jordan rivers in your life get this focusing on the Lord is essential and consecrating ourselves to the Lord is vital but we will never cross the river unless we take steps of faith our eyes and our hearts can be right on but if we don't move our feet we will never progress and God's work we must commit ourselves our time our energy our money our lives to what God is doing or it won't happen you can't plan a vacation forever right at some point you actually just have to go otherwise it's not a vacation it's just a dream we have to take that step of faith now imagine us standing near the banks of the thundering Jordan River you've got armed warriors men's men with swords and shields but standing right next to them our wide-eyed mothers with helpless babes and their arms some probably born the night before all around them are the flocks all of their possessions in the world it's all gathered they're all ready to move when God opens away all the people had their eyes on the ark that day it was positioned high on the shoulders of the priests the priests there waiting out slowly into that water right everyone was ready clean hearts spiritually alert watching for something that only God could do at that point already the step of faith had been taken now that the priest stopped and they're standing still and a great hush would have probably fallen over the crowds why did they stop then somebody noticed something the water began to recede somewhere upriver somewhere beyond to their sight the water stopped right and not only that but miraculously this riverbed is dry you can imagine the muck and dirt and soil and sediment and all the stuff that have been in the bottom of that River it's dry the the thunder of the river is transformed into the thunder of faithful footsteps walking across it this amazing event was so amazing in the minds of Israel that they wrote a song about it you find it in Psalm 14 it Psalm 114 sorry this is the seed looked and it fled the Jordan turned back the mountain skipped like Rams the hills like lambs why was it see that you fled in Jordan that you turned your back mountains that you've skipped like Rams hills like lambs and then comes the answer tremble earth at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob I truly longed to see what God will do in our lives and in our church if we will learn these lessons from Joshua we all have our own personal Jordan rivers to cross challenges that stretch out before us things that are simply too great for us to be able to go it alone but we must believe that nothing is too difficult for God and then rely upon him we need to focus ourselves on Christ on following him as he leads the way through we must set ourselves apart and be wholly getting ourselves ready to move when God moves well we might not know where God is leading we must rest assured that if he is leading then we need to follow are you ready to cross the Jordan let's pray

Channel: Glory Baptist Church

Views: 4,540

Rating: 4.7894735 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, Bible, Glory Baptist Church, Aitkin Church, 56431 Church, Aitkin MN, Glen MN, God, Holy Spirit, Old Testament, Joshua, Joshua 3, Jordan River, Mille Lacs Church, Aitkin Baptist Church, Lakes Area Church, Up North Church, Sermon Series Joshua, Faith, Walk by faith, Pastor Chris Meirose

Id: dkJ5hStc_u0

Length: 31min 59sec (1919 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 02 2017